“Liam eventually added, "I don't want a war, but if it comes, yes; I want to see it."

My first impulse was to tell him, "no, he didn't want to see it," It was wrong of me to say though. He did want to see it. I think many people who haven't seen a war want to. It's not right to tell them they don't. What they don't want and don't know is that they don't want to have seen it. I know because I've seen bits and pieces of several.

I watched from a hilltop as a Roman legion met Picts. I tended some of the wounded out of Gettysburg. I even managed to screw up and go down the hill to drag French knights out of the mud at Agincor and I know I don't want to see another war. But I don't even want to have seen the ones I have been to. Here in Karvalen, I have seen a small war. More like a few major engagements in a larger campaign I suppose. Even so, the dead littered the battlefield like corn after a hailstorm. Wounded screamed their agony or cried in despair, those with the strength left. Some lay in pools of their own juices and gasped in short quick breaths. Fearing the last one would come all too soon. The mud was dirt and blood. The smell of guts and feces was thick in the sunshine and birds pecked at sightless eyes. That was victory.

I stared at my son and wondered how I could explain it. How could I make his sixteen year old mind comprehend.”